1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments disclosed herein relate generally to facilitating communications over a network. More specifically, one or more embodiments disclosed herein relate to improving the reliability of a connection during a communication session on an electronic communications device.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Advances in electronic communications technologies have interconnected people and allowed for better communication than ever before. To illustrate, users traditionally relied on a public switched telephone network (“PSTN”) to speak with other users in real-time. Now, users may communicate using network or Internet-based communication systems. One such network-based system is an internet protocol (“IP”) telephone system, such as a voice over IP (“VoIP”) communication system.
Conventional VoIP systems commonly rely on a central datacenter/backup datacenter general architecture to provide VoIP services for each VoIP device. The central datacenter provides VoIP services such as facilitating VoIP communication sessions (e.g., voice and video calls). The backup datacenter generally provides an available option to restore the VoIP system to an operating state in the event the central datacenter fails (e.g., network failure, hardware failure, datacenter maintenance).
A number of disadvantages exist with respect to conventional VoIP systems. For example, conventional VoIP systems still greatly lag behind traditional PSTNs in terms of reliability, service, and dependability. For instance, traditional circuit-switched PSTNs have evolved over the last few decades to provide 99.95%-99.999% uptime. In contrast, conventional VoIP systems often are less reliable. For example, users often experience dropped calls, connection timeouts, service outages, and communication delays. Users experience frustration when attempting to access services that are unavailable, or when the VoIP system is not functioning as intended. Further, users experience frustration when the quality of a communication session fluctuates, or when a communication session terminates unexpectedly or prematurely.
When a communication session prematurely terminates, users must request that the VoIP system reinitiate the communication session. For example, if a user's VoIP phone call with a recipient user fails, the user must manually redial to allow the VoIP system to reconnect the user with the recipient user. Further, in some instances, the VoIP system may not immediately be able to reconnect the user with the recipient user, but must wait a period of time before being able to again establish communication with the recipient user due to one or more technical problems with the central datacenter or network connection with the central datacenter.
The central datacenter/backup datacenter model also may increase the possibility of system failure. For example, having a single datacenter for every network device increases the susceptibility to malicious attacks as a hacker wanting to disrupt a VoIP system need only to target the central datacenter. Similarly, accidents, such as a power failure, may cripple the VoIP system until the VoIP system provider can shift operations to the backup datacenter.
In conventional VoIP systems, if the central datacenter fails, the VoIP system is down until the central datacenter may be brought back online or until the services can be migrated to the backup datacenter. For example, customers on a call during an outage will experience a dropped call and often have to wait for service to be restored as the VoIP service provider shifts the VoIP system to the backup datacenter. In other words, while the backup datacenter provides a VoIP system an option to eventually restore service should the central datacenter fail, the backup datacenter does not prevent temporary service outages or dropped calls for users at the moment of failure.
Further, the backup datacenter does not provide support in the event that the network device temporary loses connection with the central datacenter. For example, if the connection between the network device and the central datacenter temporarily goes down, and a user's call is dropped, the backup datacenter provides no assistance.
Accordingly, there are a number of considerations to be made in improving the convenience, access, and systems associated with network-based communication systems.